So last night I set up the ol' Bernina and the serger, and got crankin' with bahtyoun on his new linen shirts.

The boy has taken to the serger like a fish to water.

"Hey, bel. I think this is the last piece. Got any more?" bathyoun says.

"What piece is that" I say, not recognizing a large square of linen.

"Dunno. It was just there."

"That wasn't a piece. That was the leftover linen for another shirt."

"Well, it's serged now."

I'm telling ya. This guy was born to drive a serger . . .

Anywhoo, we almost finished the first shirt, and got started with the second one. I think I'll need to cut new sleeves for the second one (see serged random piece of fabric), which is a good thing because the first ones were not as long as I like.

Ahhh, another fighter introduced to the joys of wearing linen.

Linen is our friend.

Treat it right and you will wear diamonds.

(Okay, that last part was an exaggeration, but treat it well anyhow.)

On other news, my mask is now finished.

According to Carlos, it is the freakiest project I've finished since Wilhelmina.

And no, geoffreyapclywd and bigd544, you are still not authorized to stick pins on Wilhelmina! Unless you both have a death wish, that is . . .

At any rate, this is a really cool mask. Stubbes, a really freaky puritan guy from the 16th Century, wrote a treatise called "Anatomie of Abuses." Basically, he was one of those people who were very concerned that someone, somewhere, was actually having fun. Your basic fashionistas of the day were his main target and it didn't matter whether you were male of female. Mr. Stubbes, was an equal opportunity denouncer.

(I wonder what he'd thought of Paris Hilton.)

But back to Mr. Stubbes. In his aforementioned "Anatomie of Abuses," he says that women had taken to the horrible habit of wearing black masks with only holes for the eyes and mouth, and goes to say that they look like "devils" when wearing the dastardly contraptions.

However, after trying my mask on, I am happy to report that Mr. Stubbes was wrong.

Women - or at least this woman - do not look like devils in that mask.

We look like the love child of Dr. Doom and Jason Voorhees.

A very scary love child, but a love child nonetheless.

Heck, a machete would not have been out of place, if only machetes had been period.

it has a lot of red in it to begin with. If you go with a steel grey color, it would dull it down. Keep your blue count up on it - the red in the existing brown will twing it a little purple, but not too bad. Of the colors they are offering, go with the Royal Blue. Navy will kill the color too far.

If you can get your hands on a swatch of similar color silk, you can play with the tone a little easier.

It should take dye just fine. You may want to get some synthropal soap from Daharma to wash the thing in first to help remove some of the sizing.

Actually, not exactly. There is a 17th C. reference by Holme stating that "in the past," women wore a type of mask that covered eyes and nose, with a cloth attached to the bottom covering the rest of the face. Since he was also making reference to the full size black masks in the following sentence, I would like to think that by "in the past" he would be referring to the previous century.

The only 16th C. depictions I have found so far are of full-sized (vizard) masks. There are some 17th Century depictions of half masks, though, but they are out of period.

I am still searching for other references, as I am a firm believer that research is a "live" thing. But I cannot say that I have found any pre-1600 half mask references so far.

Absolutely! I am writing an article on masks, and it will go to my webpage. I like updating those once I find more references. Which reminds me that I need to update the doll section with more findings :-D

Okay, so last night I went and checked my books. Go to Arnold's Patterns of History, and check page 11. You will find two prints.

The first print depicts a couple of women getting dressed. Several people are wearing masks, some of them animal masks, one of them sort of a harlequin. They are all full-face masks. This is a 16th Century image, and well within our period.

The second print depicts a harlequin-like figure in a huge farthingale, dancing around. She is wearing a half mask. Regrettably, it is post 1600, and therefore outside period.

So the search for 1/2 mask references pre-1600 continues. So far, zero. :-(

According to Carlos, it is the freakiest project I've finished since Wilhelmina.

I have been jealous of your Wilhelmina and have decided to make my own Pandora. She will be the full 24 inches (I think). I bought the pattern that you used.

I am going to make her out of linen I have at home.

I just bought some 2nd and 3rd quality alpaca wool to stuff her with at Ymir. And I just bought some pretty red/brown wool embroidery strandable for her hair. Now I just need to track down some linen or silk embroidery thread for her face. :)

Then I can make her a Venetian V-neck Dress and try out some ideas on it before I try a big one.